Courageous Heart
by s16thunderjet
Summary: Love, true love was out there. And she knew, it time, she would find it.


Hello everyone! I wrote this for a friend, a die-hard Jane/Maura fan who has long accepted that they will never be canon. She does, however, believe that Maura has already fallen in love with Jane while Jane is still busy loving men who don't love her back. It is with this premise that this story was created. Just to be clear, this is about Maura's one-sided and unrequited love for Jane, AKA my friend's headcanon. As such, if you are offended by that idea, please, please don't read this because I will not be held responsible for whatever negative emotions it may cause.

Words of caution:  
I have only watched the entire series ONCE and only to get an idea of what is happening. My friend basically kidnapped me last weekend and forced me to marathon all the episodes up to 3x13. Then, the other day I watched 3x14 with her and had to sit through all her swearing and cussing at, surprisingly, Jane and not Casey. Something about Jane being out of character when one of her boyfriends is around and of her being blind to the one person who has been by her side this whole time.

With that being said, please forgive me for any inconsistencies with regard to characterization, timelines, and other details. Clearly, I'm not well-versed in the Rizzoli and Isles universe. I hope the mistakes I made, if any, are excusable.

Please read the author's notes before you bomb me in the e-mail or in the reviews. This is rated PG-13 for homosexual themes.

So here goes. Thank you!

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A Rizzoli and Isles Fanfiction  
"**Courageous Heart"  
**by: s16thunderjet

'If I am to be fallen into love, I will. And, if as a result I will appear to be stupid, disillusioned, and of poor judgment, I will. And, I would be damned if I cared what other people think. For I would rather be thought of as all of these things than not love. If in loving, I become the naked woman on the horse, I will ride that horse with my head held high. This is my spirit. I am unbreakable.'

From the first moment she had read that quotation, she had felt a sudden surge of courage she never thought she possessed. She believed in it, embraced it wholeheartedly, practically lived and breathed it.

In her youth, she had thought that Garrett Fairfield was the one. Theirs was a storybook romance for the ages, a pairing endorsed and widely accepted by Boston's elite. Their marriage would have meant the joining of two esteemed, affluent and respected families, seemingly a royal wedding.

However, it was not meant to be.

For a time, she thought Ian Faulkner was the love of her life. He was a fellow doctor, a fellow medical volunteer. Unlike Garrett, he understood things that interested her and was able to hold intelligent conversation with her. Theirs was a whirlwind affair fueled by mutual desire and a dash of danger, set in a land of pestilence and death.

When the volunteer program ended, they found themselves at a crossroads. It was then that she realized that while she may have considered him the love of her life, he never once considered her his. For him, his patients were the most important. People who did not have even the most basic of medical care available to them, those are the ones he valued the most.

In the end, she had accepted the position offered to her by the Governor of Massachusetts, both to return home to Boston and establish as much distance between them as she could in the hopes of one day forgetting about his decision to remain in Africa instead of being by her side.

Yet, when he suddenly showed up at her doorstep a few years later, she could not quell the need that erupted within her still recovering heart. Just like she had before, she gave herself completely and willingly to him, offering up everything in absolute surrender.

It was like living in a fantasy bubble filled with floating hearts and flying kisses. Those few short days Ian was there, she had worn two different shoes, giggled like a little girl thanks to his text messages and was generally distracted from everything except maybe her work.

Reality came bursting in sometime later when he abruptly left and headed back to Africa, to the loves of his life, along with almost a truckload of medical supplies she had so generously provided.

Though she never assumed that he would actually choose her this time, some part of her wished that he did, the same part that had held on to that tiny sliver of hope all these years.

Burned twice, but still finding the courage to give it another try, she allowed her herself to heal and fall in love again. This time though, her heart found someone entirely different from both Garrett and Ian.

It was someone who was not from an opulent family and was not a member of high society; someone who was not a doctor and did not have any medical background whatsoever; someone who was not a man.

At first, she rejected the idea that she had fallen for another woman. It was something she never considered herself to be open to, especially given her family and her background. She had even tried to pass it off as mere attraction to the masculinity of said woman and not to the woman per se.

In the time that had passed, she learned to accept that her feelings were much deeper than those of people in the closest of friendships. The way she cared for and loved this other woman surpassed her love for Garrett and Ian combined.

This love was ardent and all-consuming yet, gentle and liberating at the same time. It gave her a reason to get up in the morning, but sometimes hindered her from getting a good night's sleep. It emboldened her to take on each day with strength and wisdom then threatened to swallow her whole and leave her in a dark abyss of loneliness and despair.

Nonetheless, as the saying said, she was not afraid to seem stupid, disillusioned and of poor judgement. She would not care what other people think. She had fallen in love with this amazing woman and she would not let anything or anyone prevent her from finally making her feelings known.

And it was because of her belief in this that Maura Dorthea Isles, Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, decided to throw caution to the wind and tell her life long best friend forever, Detective Jane Clementine Rizzoli of the Boston Police Department, that she was profoundly and irrevocably in love with her.

Of course, no amount of courage would ever guarantee absolute victory. And, true love, no matter how devoted and unconditional, will not always be returned.

While the strawberry blonde had never been under the illusion that the dark brunette had romantic feelings for her as well, she never expected to be utterly and irrefutably rejected.

'I'm sorry, Maura, but I don't feel the same way.' she had said. 'I never have and never will fall in love with you. I'm just not into women. I'm really, really sorry.' she had added.

So instead of finally getting together and becoming the couple everyone thought they would become, they remained as they were. Friends. Best friends. Life long best friends forever.

Though the idea of never having her feelings returned shattered Maura's heart, she would not allow it to completely destroy her and turn her into dust that would fade away into the night.

Now burned thrice, though admittedly, this third time was the most painful of all, she would pick herself back up again and force her heart to mend. Even if it took forever, she would not give up, she would not give in.

Love, true love was out there. And, she knew, in time, she would find it.

**The End**

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**Author's Notes:**

1. The quote referenced throughout belongs to C. JoyBell C.

2. Some liberties were taken with Maura's relationships with Garrett and Ian.

All comments, suggestions, criticisms and the like, please click the link below.

**All Rizzoli and Isles characters copyright to Tess Gerritsen and Janet Tamaro. They are used without permission. Please do not sue me, I don't have money.**

**©2012 Shirley Joy Gadia, all other characters used in the fanfic and the story itself, all rights reserved.**

Thank you!


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